John Mayer
(Columbia)
There’s something deeply troubling about John Mayer, something I can’t quite put my finger on. Something about this curly-haired, charismatic guitar whiz that triggers my involuntary gag reflex and an almost primal sense of… fear? loathing? I dunno; maybe it’s just my well-honed, if aged and battered, bullshit detector wheezing out a warning that the guy’s a fraud.
Now, before you get all tabloid-reactionary-syndrome on my ass, let me state for the record that I’ve remained singularly unimpressed with the Berklee-schooled Mayer since his major label debut, Room For Squares, which was preceded by an indie release I haven’t heard. That was way back in 2001, long before he was making the Star, OK! and People mag scene on a regular basis in his role as arm candy for Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston, etc. He always struck me as a shameless Stevie Ray Vaughan wannabe, and a not very convincing one either, letting rip ersatz blues licks siphoned off a collection of boxed sets (you can always tell who learned the blues from CDs in the ‘90s as opposed to LPs and firsthand club experiences) while warbling in a kind of mushmouthed approximation of “soul” that he picked up from listening to Dave Matthews records. That he somehow earned the bear-hug of the jamband community during the early years of his ascent is utterly mystifying; put him in a cutting contest with, say, Derek Trucks or Warren Haynes and you’d have to call in the mobile medics to clean up after the carnage.
All that aside, just to return to the tabloid notion for a sec, I understand why some of my fellow heterosexual males don’t dig Mayer for extramusical reasons. Hunch-shouldered and rat-faced, he’s only handsome when lined up next to some of his bandmates (have you seen Pino Palladino lately? he looks like Bela Lugosi!), so the fact that he’s nailing all these A-list starlets and pneumatically-enhanced entertainers has gotta stick in the craw of a lot of guys. I posed the Mayer Envy Question to Mistress Carlita the other day following my weekly dungeon session, and she suggested that it might just be a simple “package matter” — that he’s getting his cock sucked by Jessica ‘n’ Jennifer ‘n’ the like because there’s puh-lenty of that ol’ oscar mayer weiner to go around. “Or,” the Mistress snickered, “maybe he’s extremely adept at playing some hot licks on a lady’s Flying V…”
Whew. That’s some mental image. I don’t wanna go there.
The record at hand: Where The Light Is is a 2-CD recorded last December at L.A.’s Nokia Theater (it was also filmed by veteran lensman Danny Clinch). Disc 1 features a five-song acoustic set from Mayer plus an eight-song set by the John Mayer Trio (w/Palladino on bass and Steve Jordan on drums); Disc 2 has the full Mayer Band, which includes two extra guitarists, a keyboard/lap steel player and a pair of horn men), at the time touring behind Mayer’s last album, 2006’s Grammy-winning Continuum. As live albums go, Where The Light Is makes all the right moves, notably a crisp sound that puts the listener right there in the front row, except when there’s applause, which gets digitally dialed back so’s not to distract folks getting into the Mayer groove via their iPods or home theater set-ups. Hey, it’s a damn live album, the latest of several Mayer live platters intended to give you the real-deal Mayer experience, and it’s on a major label; you didn’t think they would do a Dick’s Picks-styled warts-and-all release, did you? Whether or not any post-production sweetened things up in the mix, we’ll never know, of course.
So — what can be said of the Mayer record that I didn’t already say in the second half of the second paragraph above? Should I just wait until the trained chimps at USA Today file their (inevitably glowing) Mayer reviews and provide the links?
Not on your life. We can dispense with the acoustic set pretty handily. Two words: “Free Fallin’”. That’s right. Of all the Tom Petty songs Mayer could have chosen to cover, and Petty has plenty of earnestly likable numbers in his back catalog that would meet the Mayer “soul” requirements, he has to do the absolute worst one available (yes, it was co-written by Jeff “I can ruin anyone’s record” Lynne). In addition to his Dave Matthews fixation, Mayer has a couple of annoying vocal shticks, one a kind of midrange honk that sounds like the left side of a PA system blowing and the other a falsetto that’s so nails-on-blackboard you wanna dig up Carl Wilson’s rotting corpse and have him sing voiceovers next time Mayer steps to the mic. Mayer employs both of these strategies frequently, and in a stripped-down setting they’re more annoying than usual. And though he strums along amiably, occasionally veering off into Michael Hedges pluck-and-thump territory, he’s just not an interesting acoustic guitarist at all.
The Mayer Trio set is marginally better, mainly because, well… because any Stevie Ray riff or lick is always better than no Stevie Ray riff or lick, right? And Mayer’s got ‘em a-plenty, starting with a Double Trouble-ized version “Everyday I Have The Blues” (we know you do, John), right down to Mayer’s Stevie Ray-does-Jimi wah-wah flourishes.
Speaking of whom: why cover one Jimi tune, when you can cover two? A most excellent idea! “Wait Until Tomorrow”… um… hey, Steve Jordan sounds JUST LIKE NOEL REDDING on harmony vocals! “Bold As Love” (we know you are, John, we asked the Axis)… um… hey, I think I’ll go LISTEN TO HENDRIX’S ORIGINAL! Somewhere in the middle of the set the JM3 gets down with some virtuoso-style rollin’ ‘n’ tumblin’ (“Who Did You Think I Was” is more Stevie Ray mojo-working; the slow 12-bar blooze of “Out Of My Mind” elicits all manner of gooey cheers from the adoring audience), and somewhere in the middle of the set I also decided it was a good opp to take my dog out in the back yard to play frisbee catch.
The full band set is where Mayer manages to get his hands firmly on the reins and steer this mess out of “bland” and into “inoffensive” — which may be key to his appeal, come to think of it. (Ladies, you’ll have to advise me on that “package” question…) From the woop-deet-doot-bam chugalug of “Waiting On The World To Change,” which is a kind of midperiod (read: bland, inoffensive) Clapton rocker with horns and glockenspiel-sounding keys; to a slow-dance, soulful ballad called, duh, “Slow Dancing In A Burning Room,” that in a living room at this very moment some guy is playing on the stereo while he practices his “moves” for tonight’s big date; to the smoky pop/blues of “Gravity,” a kind of Jack Johnson-meets-Mark Knopfler ripoff featuring a ripoff of Otis Redding’s “Dreams To Remember” grafted onto it as an intro; to, even more egregiously, the most watered-down, lead-footed, inessential cover of “I Don’t Need No Doctor” ever laid down on tape (or hard disc) in modern history (oh, it’s so like a train wreck… somebody buy Mayer a copy of Humble Pie’s Rockin’ The Fillmore, pronto… on second thought, don’t): this is not a good record.
But if it’s not “good,” does that make it “bad”? What does a one-star rating — for the nifty eco-friendly packaging of the set, natch — mean anyway? Just because Mayer gets away with this pabulum and laughs all the way to the bank (and to Jessica’s tits), that doesn’t make him a “bad” person either, does it?
Perhaps every generation needs its own Jimmy Buffett, a good-time troubadour who serves up unthreatening, modestly tuneful music under a veneer of inclusiveness (the girlfriend-factor-exclusiveness thing notwithstanding – although Buffett’s wife was a hottie too). The perfect soundtrack to margarita-, pina colada- and even wine cooler-sipping. What would be the Mayer equivalent of a parrothead? A rathead? Time will tell.
Incidentally, they’re going all out on this title, issuing it on CD and as digital download plus on both standard and Blu-ray DVD (featuring goodies you can’t get with the audio incarnations). I’d be interested to learn the stats for the respective DVD formats after a few weeks: if Blu-ray sales are significantly greater — that is, if people actually want to pay twice as much to get Mayer in high-def — it might give me a sense of whether or not I’ve got my head completely up my own ass about this guy. No, no — you don’t have to go to the trouble to tell me. I’m the professional here, after all.
Standout Tracks: Not a fucking one. FRED MILLS
